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CHAPTER 19

Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.*1The two angels reached Sodom in the evening, as Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he got up to greet them; and bowing down with his face to the ground,
2he said, “Please, my lords,* come aside into your servant’s house for the night, and bathe your feet; you can get up early to continue your journey.” But they replied, “No, we will pass the night in the town square.”a3He urged them so strongly, however, that they turned aside to his place and entered his house. He prepared a banquet for them, baking unleavened bread, and they dined.

4b Before they went to bed, the townsmen of Sodom, both young and old—all the people to the last man—surrounded the house.
5They called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to your house tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have sexual relations with them.”
6Lot went out to meet them at the entrance. When he had shut the door behind him,
7he said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not do this wicked thing!
8I have two daughters who have never had sexual relations with men. Let me bring them out to you,* and you may do to them as you please. But do not do anything to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”
9They replied, “Stand back! This man,” they said, “came here as a resident alien, and now he dares to give orders! We will treat you worse than them!” With that, they pressed hard against Lot, moving in closer to break down the door.c10But his guests put out their hands, pulled Lot inside with them, and closed the door;
11they struck the men at the entrance of the house, small and great, with such a blinding light* that they were utterly unable to find the doorway.

12Then the guests said to Lot: “Who else belongs to you here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, all who belong to you in the city—take them away from this place!d13We are about to destroy this place, for the outcry reaching the LORD against those here is so great that the LORD has sent us to destroy it.”e14So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had contracted marriage with his daughters.* “Come on, leave this place,” he told them; “the LORD is about to destroy the city.” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

15As dawn was breaking, the angels urged Lot on, saying, “Come on! Take your wife with you and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.”
16When he hesitated, the men, because of the LORD’s compassion for him, seized his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters and led them to safety outside the city.
17As soon as they had brought them outside, they said: “Flee for your life! Do not look back or stop anywhere on the Plain. Flee to the hills at once, or you will be swept away.”f18“Oh, no, my lords!” Lot replied to them.
19“You have already shown favor to your servant, doing me the great kindness of saving my life. But I cannot flee to the hills, or the disaster will overtake and kill me.
20Look, this town ahead is near enough to escape to. It is only a small place.* Let me flee there—is it not a small place?—to save my life.”
21“Well, then,” he replied, “I grant you this favor too. I will not overthrow the town you have mentioned.
22Hurry, escape there! I cannot do anything until you arrive there.” That is why the town is called Zoar.g

23The sun had risen over the earth when Lot arrived in Zoar,
24and the LORD rained down sulfur upon Sodom and Gomorrah, fire from the LORD out of heaven.h25He overthrew* those cities and the whole Plain, together with the inhabitants of the cities and the produce of the soil.i26But Lot’s wife looked back, and she was turned into a pillar of salt.j

27The next morning Abraham hurried to the place where he had stood before the LORD.
28As he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole region of the Plain,* he saw smoke over the land rising like the smoke from a kiln.k

29When God destroyed the cities of the Plain, he remembered Abraham and sent Lot away from the upheaval that occurred when God overthrew the cities where Lot had been living.

Moabites and Ammonites.*30Since Lot was afraid to stay in Zoar, he and his two daughters went up from Zoar and settled in the hill country, where he lived with his two daughters in a cave.
31The firstborn said to the younger: “Our father is getting old, and there is not a man in the land to have intercourse with us as is the custom everywhere.
32Come, let us ply our father with wine and then lie with him, that we may ensure posterity by our father.”
33So that night they plied their father with wine, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; but he was not aware of her lying down or getting up.
34The next day the firstborn said to the younger: “Last night I lay with my father. Let us ply him with wine again tonight, and then you go in and lie with him, that we may ensure posterity by our father.”
35So that night, too, they plied their father with wine, and then the younger one went in and lay with him; but he was not aware of her lying down or getting up.

36Thus the two daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father.
37The firstborn gave birth to a son whom she named Moab, saying, “From my father.”* He is the ancestor of the Moabites of today.l38The younger one, too, gave birth to a son, and she named him Ammon, saying, “The son of my kin.”* He is the ancestor of the Ammonites of today.m

* [19:1–29] The story takes place in one day (counting a day from the previous evening): evening (v. 1), dawn (v. 15), and sunrise (v. 23). The passage resembles Jgs 19:15–25, which suggests dependence of one story on the other.

* [19:2] My lords: Lot does not yet know that the men are God’s messengers; cf. 18:3.

* [19:8] Let me bring them out to you: the authority of a patriarch within his house was virtually absolute. Lot’s extreme response of offering his daughters to a violent mob seems to be motivated by the obligation of hospitality.

* [19:11] Blinding light: an extraordinary flash that temporarily dazed the wicked men and revealed to Lot the true nature of his guests.

* [19:14] It is uncertain whether Lot’s sons-in-law were fully married to his daughters or only “engaged” to them (Israelite “engagement” was the first part of the marriage ceremony), or even whether the daughters involved were the same as, or different from, the two daughters who were still in their father’s house.

* [19:20] A small place: the Hebrew word misar, lit., “a little thing,” has the same root consonants as the name of the town Zoar in v. 22.

* [19:25] Overthrew: this term, lit., “turned upside down,” is used consistently to describe the destruction of the cities of the Plain. The imagery of earthquake and subsequent fire fits the geology of this region.

* [19:28–29] In a deft narrative detail, Abraham looks down from the height east of Hebron, from which he could easily see the region at the southern end of the Dead Sea, where the cities of the Plain were probably located.

* [19:30–38] This Israelite tale about the origin of Israel’s neighbors east of the Jordan and the Dead Sea was told partly to ridicule these ethnically related but rival nations and partly to give popular etymologies for their names. The stylized nature of the story is seen in the names of the daughters (“the firstborn” and “the younger”), the ease with which they fool their father, and the identical descriptions of the encounters.

* [19:37] From my father: in Hebrew, me’abi, similar in sound to the name “Moab.”

* [19:38] The son of my kin: in Hebrew, ben-ammi, similar in sound to the name “Ammonites.”

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